Posted on 10/03/2006 3:09:36 PM PDT by blam
Nutritional "Boost" Making Westerners Taller, Healthier, Expert Says
Erica Lloyd
for National Geographic News
October 2, 2006
It's no secret that in the past few centuries people in Western nations have been getting taller and living longer.
But now experts say that today's Westerners are the product of an accelerated spate of growth that is unique in human history.
People in the developed world are taller and more robust than their great, great, great grandparents probably ever imagined.
Robert Fogel, director of the Center for Population Economics at the University of Chicago, notes that Westerners are about 50 percent larger and live more than twice as long as those who lived 250 years ago.
He and other researchers have come to believe this startling boost cannot be attributed solely to advances in medicine or industrialization.
Western societies have certainly benefited from such advances as antibiotics, Fogel says. But the best indication of whether a person lives long and enjoys good health is a person's size.
The taller you are, the longer you'll live, Fogel believes. And the reasons for this, he and others suggest, go back to the womb.
Birth Weight
Studies of Norwegian men in the 1960s found that taller men were more likely to survive longer. A 68-inch-tall (172-centimeter-tall) man, for example, was 50 percent more likely to die than a 73-inch-tall (185-centimeter-tall) man.
Intrigued by these studies, Fogel joined forces with economist Dora Costa, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, more than a decade ago.
Together they began comparing the records of U.S. Army veterans whose mean birth year was 1837 with those of veterans who were born in the early 1920s.
In both populations they found shorter men were more susceptible to chronic diseases.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
I'm 6' 0", will I live longer?
We must be doing something right over the laast 200 years or so.
Beer.
I've been noticing this trend forever. My son passe up his Daddy's foot size when he was 10 years old. He is already about 5 inches taller than his dad, and at 17 he isn't done growing yet. All of his friends are also taller than their dads too.
My grandmother was 4'9" and lived to 98.
I am 5’10 and 188 pounds, my 18 year old son is 6’7 and about 300 pounds. I have no explanation why other than all the travel I had to do 18 years ago.
My grandmother's uncles lived to the late 90s and at 5'. Don't see too many at that age at 6'.
Says you. /smirk
This is a "statistical study" so there are folks who are both above and below the average.
I will be immortal, apparently.
Hormones in the meat! of course it also makes for bigger boobs so there is an upside.
This is something that I've noticed - it seems to me that breast size is smaller, if anything, in the U.S. As a rule, anyway.
Last thing I would want is to get taller....unless they plan on raising all the shower heads throughout the land!
Dang... I'm only 5'2". Guess it's time to check on that life insurance policy.
My sister and I are both shorter than both of our parents. :-/
Not sure what to make of my situation. My dad is 6'3". Both of my grandfather's were 6'3" or 6'4". My uncle is 6'8". My mom is 5'8".
Both my brother and I wound up 6' even. And we sure as heck ate well living on a farm.
Bummer.
And a 100 percent chance that both 68 inch and 73 inch tall men will die.
"This is something that I've noticed - it seems to me that breast size is smaller, if anything, in the U.S. As a rule, anyway."
Actually, they're bigger, on average. (I recall a study of bra sales by sizes posted on FR, actually.)
I would imagine it's a fashion issue.
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